#1 Why “Soap and a Volkswagen”? The plan for this vehicle is to turn her into a pop-up shop for Luxury Lane Soap. I want to set up an adorable, mobile, Volkswagen shaped shop and sell at fairs and markets across North America. I want to spend my summers camping with my family and meeting all of our wonderful fans and customers. I want to give hugs in person and thank you for being a part of our lives. It sounds silly and dramatic but this is all because of you and it is time I gave you a high five, in person.

#2 She has a name. Naming your project is just something you do in my family. Look at my adorable grandparents with their projects, Herby and Matilda.

You name your project because much like a child, you will be giving this baby life. You will nurse her through sickness and health and you will spend all of your money bringing her to her full potential. This is serious business and must be taken seriously. For serious. So, what is her name? Miss Erica. The “Miss” is important because she’s a proper lady. Why Miss Erica? That is what my dad called me when I was little. Awwwwwwwww.

Now that we have that all cleared up, onward to what you are really hear for, a soaking wet, sexy, piece of machine…

After Rory washed the outside, I was so ready to tackle in inside!

I have been waiting to scrub this babe out since the second I saw her!

Look at how beautiful she is!! Pro tip: Herbal Essence Shampoo. No rust in the floor! This was a huge surprise for us. Miss Erica is 44 years old. You just don’t find Volkswagens this clean. Seriously. The doors aren’t even rusty. Just…swoon.So this is where we are at now. I have plans to buff her all out this weekend and get that layer of burnt paint off while Rory gets the inside ready for an undercoat. Rust is a huge issue where we live so we want to seal everything up and get an extra layer of protection on as soon as possible.

I want to thank everyone who has been following along for this adventure. We have big plans including completely rebuilding the motor over the winter and finishing the interior in the spring. A full blown paint job is still a few years in the future because I am kiiiinda in love with the look of her right now. My hopes are to have her completely road worthy and safe to take her to a few venues next summer. You can help. Have an event in your area that we might be interested in? Please do not hesitate to mention in the comments below!

So, now that we have her home, we needed to clean her out and completely disassemble the interior.

Thankfully, these snazzy seat covers and layers of trash preserved the original interior very nicely, but we will get to that later.Just getting all of the trash out made a huge difference. Potential is gleaming from this beauty! Super cool, we found the original jack!Pealing back the layers of time.

Now to pull out all of the interior.While taking apart seats, I received my first restoration injury!

Bam! Empty!Okay…now she’s empty…Next we took the topper off.While Rory was doing that, I was disassembling the seats and mother of pearl, look what I found, pristine, original vinyl! Seriously, these seats are nicer than any of the seats in anything we drive…Along with the original jack and gorgeous vinyl seats, we found some awesome original stamping.Next, it was time to clean her, but that is going to have a post of it’s own because you will not believe how rust free and clean she is.

In 2007 I fell madly in love with a 1971 Volkswagen Westfalia.She belonged to my Aunt and Uncle and I begged them to sell her to me. They said IF they ever wanted to sell, I would be the first to know. Jump almost 10 years later and it was time to pass her on. Of course I didn’t have the money, I didn’t think they would ever let such a beauty go, but a quick interest free loan to myself off of a credit card, and she was mine. (I made my first payment today! Woo!)

The only BIG problem was that this Volkswagen lived in Utah, over the mountains, and I live in Iowa.

Everyone loves a good adventure, right?! We rented a vehicle, loaded up the camping gear, tools and the kids, and we were off!

The plan was to drive to Utah, work on the van a bit and drive her back to Iowa. Yes. Drive her back. This vehicle had been sitting for 15 years, undriven. What could go wrong?

Achievement unlocked! During this trip, the kids quickly learned how to set up the tent themselves.

After only two days, Rory had her ready to go!

Starla rode with him while I followed behind in the rental with Trent, just incase there were any problems.

And there were.

For starters, before we left, she wouldn’t start. We never did get her to idle and had no reverse the entire trip.

Double checking to make sure the topper didn’t blow off while driving…

Fuel filter change… Over heating…

Majestically looking over Utah while she cooled down.

And then the scariest thing ever happened. While trying to make it up a mountain and hitting 10,000 ft. in elevation, she just couldn’t do it anymore. Between not being able to idle and 2 mph road work, she quit. Rory had to roll backwards onto the shoulder while I watched and basically crapped my pants.

Being the awesome guy he is, while waiting for the Volkswagen to calm herself down, he walked around seeing if other people, who were having trouble getting up the mountain, needed help. Do you see that incline?!!

To add insult to injury, we had to be damn sure she could make through the construction, as there were multiple places we would not be able to pull over if there was a problem.Getting over the mountains from south Utah to Colorado, over some of the most difficult terrain, in a 44 year old Volkswagen that hadn’t been driven for 15 years is absolutely not something I recommend for the faint of heart.

But we absolutely loved it. Even better, the kids loved it.

After three full days of driving, we made it back to Iowa. Getting from Denver to Nebraska to home was a piece of cake as we dropped elevation. The flatness of the midwest suits her.Extra bonus? Idle kicked in the next day when we took her down to the car wash! But that is for the next post along with what my future plans are for this beauty…